


Ghost Story

by steamandstardust



Series: The Future is Diesel [2]
Category: Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, Thomas the Tank Engine - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Friendships, Other, fireside talking, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 02:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17520230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steamandstardust/pseuds/steamandstardust
Summary: Dillon and Harriet hang back after their first day of work at the Dieselworks, discussing their impression of Sodor around the fire.Harriet tells a ghost story she heard back at the Darlington works, and an engine overhears.





	Ghost Story

The evening was announced by a blazing sunset of purple, red and gold. The Dieselworks was winding down for the day and the air grew still and quiet as drivers, mechanics and technicians clocked out. But the new drivers, Harriet and Dillon, hung behind. They had been in the same initial interview, amongst many other applicants, but it was the just the two of them who had made it to Sodor.  
“Want to chat?” Dillon asked Harriet.  
She let her harsh manner slip a little. Dillon was no threat to her.  
“Alright.”

They strolled a short distance from the tracks, stopping where a pile of rotten wood and shattered timber had been dumped next to the ashy remnants of a previous fire.  
“Diesel 10 and I were clearing some sidings today,” Dillon explained, gesturing at the wood, “this stuff could do with being burnt.”  
The firepit was obviously regularly used. Harriet shrugged in compliance.  
“Why not.”  
Soon the flames were licking hungrily around the larger logs, a core of bright heat spilling light as far as the tracks and warming the cheeks of the two drivers. Dillon had dragged out part of a broken railway sleeper to use as a seat. His eyes were half closed as he enjoyed the fire.  
“So, how was today for you?” he asked.

Harriet was still standing, a restless energy keeping her moving.  
“It was... different.” She was used to bawdy banter and bad jokes, but the engines with faces had unnerved her more than she dared admit. Years of working armpit deep in grease and oil had made her hard, and casual objectification by some of her co-workers had trained a venomous tongue. But none of this really prepared her for sniping shunters and sulking sentinels.  
She planted her feet and looked at Dillon.  
“Do the faces on the engines weird you out?”

Dillon barked a laugh, fingers pressed to his forehead as he leaned forward in mirth.  
“No,” he admitted, “I think it's brilliant. Don't you like it?”  
“Well,” said Harriet, “I'll get used to it. It's a bit strange though, right? Admit it.” She scrabbled for some sign of agreement; any reassurance that she wasn't weak somehow.  
“They're glorious,” Dillon murmured reverently. His mind had strayed back to Diesel 10. Now that was an engine who meant business! No need to be fancy or shiny when you were packing that much pure iron.  
Harriet hissed between her teeth.  
“Tell me you weren't a train spotter as a child?”  
“As a child?” Dillon countered, “spotting is a life long commitment.”  
“Ugh!” Harriet kicked a plank into the fire and then turned to drag another branch from the pile. Could grown men not pick reasonable interests? He probably collected stamps too, or took pictures of buses. She broke the branch over her knee and turned back to the fire. Dillon was doubled over in silent laughter.  
“You.. you-” he spluttered, unable to hold in a cackle, “you one hundred percent believed me!” His eyes glinted in the firelight and his whole body shook.  
“Dick,” said Harriet. As an afterthought, she threw half the branch at him.

The fire crackled. Dillon eventually stopped laughing.  
“I'm sorry. Anything else to say about your day?”  
Harriet pursed her lips, part of her wishing she could close up after the way her fellow driver had laughed at her, but Dillon's amusement was infectious. Unable to stop herself, she cracked a small smile.  
“Not much. Arry was moody, but I got it out of him that the diesels and the steam engines struggle to get on. I told him that we had pretty posh diesels at Darlington.” Harriet shrugged.  
“You worked at Darlington?”  
“Yes. What of it?”  
“Well,” Dillon sucked air in disbelief, “what a place. What a place to work. They built those diesel-electric hybrids there, didn't they?”  
Harriet kicked at the ground with her steel toed boot. “That was a long time ago. It's well in decline now.” There just wasn't the same emphasis on rail transport on the mainland as there was here on Sodor. Darlington wouldn't be the first works to close, and certainly not the last. Redundancies were rife and the whole glamour of it had gone. When used, engines were merely a means to an end.  
“But still,” Dillon said, “that place has history. What I wouldn't give even to get a peek in their scrapyard.”  
“Are you sure that you aren't actually a trainspotter?”  
“Quite sure. Think of it though, strange and revolutionary engines rolled away and left to rust. There might even be more like Diesel 10.”  
“Oh no,” Harriet retorted, “he's unique.” She resisted the urge to add the word 'thankfully'. Dillon and the engine seemed to have bonded, and that was more than she had managed. With ease, she lifted a sawn off block of wood and threw it into the heart of the fire.

“It's no easy task, being a relief driver,” Dillon observed. His tone was gentle now, with no trace of mockery in it.  
Harriet finally conceded to sit, folding her knees to sink cross legged straight onto the ground. The earth was dry and even slightly warm close to the fire. Plus, a bit of dirt had never bothered her.  
“I know,” she admitted. She was used to putting a whole mix of engines through their paces, but rarely did any of them have a voice and an attitude problem to go with their pipes and pistons.  
“But you're up to it girl! I can tell.”  
Harriet made a show of moving away to stop smoke getting in her eyes. Dillon didn't stir, allowing her space and holding a calm, undemanding silence.  
“Thanks,” she replied finally. “Tell me about your day.”

Dillon took a moment to rearrange his bit of sleeper, now rolling it under his back so he could lean, propped up, with his legs stretching towards the fire. He looked up at the smoke tinted sky. “What to tell,” he said, “except that we tidied the place up. I think people find 10 frightening. But he's a mechanical marvel. Really, I don't know why they don't attach claws to all of their engines.”  
“Well, probably because one swiss army knife is enough.”  
“Hey, that's my ride!”  
“I know, I know,” Harriet placated, “he looks really useful, or whatever it is. But I get why people are scared. I mean, giant hydraulic claw doesn't exactly signal amiable personality to me.”  
“Does he need to be amiable?”  
Harriet paused. “Well, no I suppose not, as long as he does his work. It's not like he takes passengers!” It was her turn to laugh now, an image of the grumpy diesel hauling a couple of coaches into the Vicarstown station almost drawing a tear of amusement. “I'd pay to see it though,” she added.  
“Alright,” Dillon said, “I'll make a bet with you. If I manage to get Diesel 10 to pull a passenger coach, then I get to name the next dare.”  
Harriet was used to this kind of banter. It actually made her feel at ease, and the thought that such a thing would actually ever be possible didn't enter her mind. “You're on,” she said.

The night deepened. Out in the canyon a fox called to his mate and an owl hooted. No engines were stirring. All of the lights, except for the odd safety light, were out at the works.  
“Do you want to hear a ghost story?” Harriet asked.  
Dillon looked up with interest. “Go on then.”  
“You'll like it; you and your obsession with scrap. Its about one of those prototype engines you mentioned.”  
The fire was finally burning just a little lower, the light tinged with red as the old wood was consumed. Dillon had scrambled back into a sitting position now, and his head was tilted slightly with interest.

“Well, this is how it goes.

There was an apprentice working at Associated Electrical Industries' Attercliffe Common, Traction Division Works. He saw a large diesel-electric prototype engine being brought down the single track siding from Broughton Lane Station. It's name was the White Lion, and it was a prototype engine brought over from Darlington. Listening in to talk amongst the workers, he discovered that it had undergone trials on the rail network and been dogged by technical problems. It was painted all over in what appeared to be white primer and he had never seen anything like it.

The loco was backed up to a point at the end of the main service road and many of its components were removed over a period of time. But it would appear that a bit too much of the equipment was removed. One night, the locomotive started rolling back down the line. It demolished a set of level crossing gates and ran the length of the back of the works, making horrible groaning noises as it went. When it reached the end of the line it ran through the buffers and finished up partially through a sectional concrete wall.”

Dillon raised his eyebrows, a delicious chill running through him.  
“And you say it was standard- non sentient- I mean?”

“Completely standard,” Harriet continued, “And that isn't all. The apprentice went to look at the crash site in the morning. Except there was no crash site! The concrete wall had been repaired and the white locomotive was gone.”

A low whistle escaped through Dillon's teeth. What a story. Perhaps the engine had somehow sensed that it was waiting to be scrapped. Harriet crossed her arms in satisfaction, her eyes twinkling in the firelight. Telling the story had brought a lively animation to her usually measured movements and her cheeks were tinged with pink.  
“What do you think happened to the white engine?” he asked.  
Harriet shrugged. “That's the story as I heard it. But that was the engine I told Arry about, the one built to race the Flying Scotsman.”  
“How have I never hear about this?”  
“Uh, it had too many problems during trials. The top speed recorded that came near the Dutchman was still on a test track. The engines were never in the same place. But I didn't tell Arry that.” Harriet focused on the fire, feeling the night chill for the first time. 

A metallic sound suddenly caught her attention. On the darkened rails nearby, she just glimpsed a large pair of eyes as they drew back into the shadows.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a mixture of real history and the story of White Lion as my dad told it to me. Some inconsistencies have been preserved to keep the spirit of a workers yarn.


End file.
